Immigration Is Fueling Cities' Strong Growth, Data Show

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: January 1, 1998

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31—
The Census Bureau today offered fresh evidence of the impact of immigration on the country's population in this decade, reporting that several major metropolitan areas -- notably New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- grew strongly even as many longer-term residents left for other parts of the country.

The influx of immigrants helped turn these areas, as well as the Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston regions, into some of the biggest gainers in population in the country. Growth in those regions was also aided by high numbers of births, another side effect of immigration because immigrant families are more likely to be of child-bearing age, and immigrant women tend to have higher birth rates than their American-born counterparts.

''If you look at some of the Frost Belt areas like New York and Chicago, international immigration is very important,'' said Marc Perry, a demographer with the Census Bureau. ''Their population increases aren't coming from domestic migration.''

Two year-end studies, containing figures for 1990 through 1996, and interviews with demographers indicate that two years from the end of the century, Americans are a people in motion, willing to move often and across long distances in search of better jobs, a more enjoyable or less expensive life style or a strong support system of family and friends.

The data, from the Census Bureau, will undoubtedly add to the debate over whether increased competition for jobs in areas where immigrants have clustered is pushing out people who are already living there, or whether those who depart would have left anyway, lured by better economic prospects elsewhere.

The impact of immigration on population patterns was derived from two studies released today: one on population changes state by state and the other on changes in the country's 273 metropolitan areas -- cities and their surrounding suburbs.

Sifting through the Census Bureau's data reveals three trends that have dominated population shifts in the 1990's: Growth remains strongest in the Sun Belt states of the South and West, which contain the 50 metropolitan areas with the fastest rates. Las Vegas, Nev., fueled by the economic engine of the gambling industry, is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country. And the impact of immigrants has been profound.

Perhaps most striking of these involves immigration.

The Census Bureau report on metropolitan areas indicated that 3 of the 10 areas experiencing the fastest rate of growth -- McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Tex.; Laredo, Tex., and Brownsville-Harlingen-San Benito, Tex. -- are in the Rio Grande Valley and are gateway cities for many immigrants from Mexico.

The report also noted that of the 10 metropolitan areas that have gained the most people, 8 -- Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Washington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle -- have benefited from high levels of immigration.

Even as some of these regions gain population over all, their central cores continue to lose people. In New York, for example, Census Bureau demographers estimate that although the metropolitan area gained nearly 389,000 people from 1990 through 1996, more than 900,000 migrated out from the core area of New York's five boroughs, plus Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties. The Census Bureau considers the New York metropolitan region to be this core area, Long Island and parts of Southern Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In California, more than 1.2 million people left Los Angeles County from 1990 through 1996. But because of immigration and a high number of births, the Los Angeles metropolitan area gained 963,626 people, making it the biggest gainer in population of all the country's metropolitan areas.

The same held true last year for California as a whole, according to the report on state-by-state growth. Last year, the state added more than 410,000 people, far and away the largest numerical increase of any state. Census Bureau demographers say that increase is the result of births and immigration, because California continues to experience the strong levels of domestic out-migration that it has throughout the 1990's.

As depicted in the Census Bureau reports, the experiences of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and of Las Vegas graphically illustrate the difficulty in determining whether immigrants are displacing longer-term resident in some cities.

According to the Census Bureau, Las Vegas has been the fastest-growing metropolitan region in the 1990's, increasing by 40.9 percent. Las Vegas' growth far outpaced the city in the No. 2 spot, Laredo, which grew by 32.7 percent.

Las Vegas' growth rate is based on job growth tied either directly or indirectly to the area's ever-expanding gambling industry. The rate of population growth is even more stunning considering that, unlike Laredo, which is a relatively small area, Las Vegas started out the decade already a large metropolitan area. In 1990, the region's population was 852,646. By July 1996, it stood at more than 1.2 million.

''That just jumps out at you,'' Mr. Perry said. ''It's grown nearly 41 percent in six years. And it's not starting from a low base.''

But unlike Los Angeles, roughly 80 percent of the growth in the Las Vegas area comes from movement of people already in the country, Mr. Perry said. And many of those people come from Southern California.

A study conducted by the Department of Comprehensive Planning in Clark County, Nev., showed that in 1993, 29 percent of the people who moved to the county that year were from five counties in Southern California -- Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino. All five of those counties have seen heavy flows of immigrants in the 1990's.

Such a pattern has caused some demographers, like William Frey of the University of Michigan, to speculate that low-skilled and low-income whites and blacks are leaving some major cities in the face of increased competition for jobs from immigrants, or when they see other economic opportunities elsewhere.

''This is what happens to the native born,'' Mr. Frey said in an interview today. ''They have other options. When they see increased competition, they go somewhere else.''

But Mr. Frey acknowledges that it is an open question whether those leaving an area like Los Angeles are being forced out by competition from immigrants, or lured away by the expanding economic opportunities in Las Vegas.

''There's both pushes and pulls for people who leave,'' he said.

Table: ''AT A GLANCE: Moving In, Moving Out'' A study released yesterday by the United States Census Bureau shows rapid growth in the metropolitan areas in some states, fueled by immigration, births and the movement of people already in this country. Table lists Metropolitan Statistical Areas (M.S.A'.s) (defined as urban concentrations of at least 100,000 people) with the fastest growth, 1990-1996. It also lists M.S.A.'s and Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (defined as large groupings of metropolitan areas) with the biggest population gains, over the same period.